Retired jet engines could help clear smog
A new idea to blow big-city peasoupers away

TO LAND at Indira Gandhi Airport is to descend from clear skies to brown ones. Delhi’s air is toxic. According to the World Health Organisation, India’s capital has the most polluted atmosphere of all the world’s big cities. The government is trying to introduce rules that will curb emissions—allowing private cars to be driven only on alternate days, for example, and enforcing better emissions standards for all vehicles. But implementing these ideas, even if that can be done successfully, will change things only slowly. A quick fix would help. And Moshe Alamaro, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks he has one.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Blown away”

From the November 26th 2016 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
Is red meat unhealthy?
Overdoing it could give you heart disease or cancer

Can Musk put people on Mars?
Whether successful or not, his attempt to do so will reshape America’s space programme

Climate change may make it harder to spot submarines
The sound of their engines will not travel as far
How harmful are electronic cigarettes?
The risks of vaping may be worth the benefits
Why don’t seals drown?
They can time their dives to match their blood oxygen
Rumours on social media could cause sick people to feel worse
They are powerful triggers of an inverse placebo effect